Introducing knitting needles to Loop-it yarn

In my last post I introduced you to Loop-it, a fuzzy, loopy yarn by Red Heart that could easily revolutionize how we teach people to knit. If you have a young person in your life who you want to show how to knit, but aren’t sure how to go about it, you definitely want to read that post.

Loop-it looks like a poodle in a ball!

In this post, I’m using Loop-it to introduce knitting needles, a logical next step when you’re using Loop-it to teach a young person to knit.

Like we did in my last post, we’ll take loops and pull them through old loops, and we’ll continue to be careful not to miss any loops. The knitting needles actually make it easier to see the loops from the previous row, but care still needs to be taken to make sure every loop of the working yarn is linked in.

As we do with regular knitting, the needle goes into the old loop, but instead of wrapping the yarn, we draw up the next loop.

In this photo, I’m taking my few rows of finger knitting, and adding a knitting needle to the mix. I insert the needle into the loop in the fabric, then pop the next loop over the tip of the needle and bring that loop through the old one.

Now it becomes necessary to turn the work at the end of every row. Working garter stitch will go as described in my last post. Once a knitting student is comfortable with this concept, the idea of stockinette stitch, and purl rows can be introduced.

This is the point when teaching goes pretty well the way it would for standard knitting lessons, but the advantage is that the knit stitch has been very well reinforced by now, and the student is probably ready to learn something new.

Now the student learns the difference between knit rows and purl rows, and how to hold the yarn at the back or front of the work as needed. It’s at this point in my teaching that I start to talk about ‘reading your knitting’ and about the ‘bumps’. This is one thing I wish my grandmother had known to teach me. The ‘bumps’ in knitting help us know the difference between right side and wrong side of our work, they help us find mistakes in our ribbing, and they can even help us know when to make cables without the aid of row counters.

At the end of my knit row, I will turn the work and either knit or purl back.

Two balls of Loop-it will make an adult-size scarf, and the free pattern even has some panels of stitch interest.

I had even more fun with Loop-it – check out my next post for more!

Two balls of Loop-it and a free pattern from the Red Heart website can give a knitting student a sense of instant gratification and accomplishment.

Cynthia MacDougall is a multi-discipline craft artist who teaches knitting. She has taught at venues from Kingston, Ontario to Olds, Alberta. A designer and technical writer since the mid-1990s, Cynthia is currently a contributor and knitting editor for A Needle Pulling Thread and KNITmuch magazines. She is also the owner of Canadian Guild of Knitters which she operates for the love of Knit!

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KNITmuch features a variety of knowledgeable and impassioned guest bloggers and contributors, each bringing their own unique perspective. Join me every day as we discover new yarn and talk about its qualities, and show off knitting tools and accessories.